At about the time when Sam Marlowe was having the momentous interview with his father, described in the last chapter, Mr. Rufus Bennett woke from an after-luncheon nap in Mrs. Hignett's delightful old-world mansion, Windles, in the county of Hampshire. He had gone to his room after lunch, because there seemed nothing else to do. It was still raining hard, so that a ramble in the picturesque garden was impossible, and the only alternative to sleep, the society of Mr. Henry Mortimer, had become peculiarly distasteful to Mr. Bennett.
Much has been written of great friendships between man and man, friendships which neither woman can mar nor death destroy. Rufus Bennett had always believed that his friendship for Mr. Mortimer was of this order. They had been boys together in the same small town, and had kept together in after years. They had been Damon and Pythias, David and Jonathan. But never till now had they been cooped up together in an English country-house in the middle of a bad patch of English summer weather. So this afternoon Mr. Bennett, in order to avoid his life-long friend, had gone to bed.
He awoke now with a start, and a moment later realized what it was that had aroused him. There was music in the air. The room was full of it. It seemed to be coming up through the floor and rolling about in chunks all round his bed. He blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and became filled with a restless irritability.
He rang the bell violently, and presently there entered a grave, thin, intellectual man who looked like a duke, only more respectable. This was Webster, Mr. Bennett's English valet.
"Is that Mr. Mortimer?" he barked, as the door opened.
"No, sir. It is I—Webster." Not even the annoyance of being summoned like this from an absorbing game of penny nap in the housekeeper's room had the power to make the valet careless of his grammar. "I fancied that I heard your bell ring, sir."
"I wonder you could hear anything with that infernal noise going on," snapped Mr. Bennett, "Is Mr. Mortimer playing that—that damned gas-engine in the drawing-room?"
"Yes, sir. Tosti's Goodbye. A charming air, sir."
"Charming air be—! Tell him to stop it."
"Very good, sir."
The valet withdrew like a duke leaving the royal presence, not actually walking backwards, but giving the impression of doing so. Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The music still continued to roll about the room.
"I am sorry to have to inform you, sir," said Webster, "that Mr.Mortimer declines to accede to your request."
"Oh, he said that, did he!"
"That is the gist of his remarks, sir."
"Did you tell him I was trying to get to sleep?"
"Yes, sir. I understood him to reply that he should worry and get a pain in the neck."
"Go down again and say that I insist on his stopping the thing. It's an outrage."
"Very good, sir."
In a few minutes, Webster, like the dove despatched from the Ark, was back again.
"I fear my mission has been fruitless, sir. Mr. Mortimer appears adamant on the point at issue."
"You gave him my message?"
"Verbatim, sir. In reply Mr. Mortimer desired me to tell you that, if you did not like it, you could do the other thing. I quote the exact words, sir."
"He did, did he?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very good! Webster!"
"Sir?"
"When is the next train to London?"
"I will ascertain, sir. Cook, I believe has a time-table."
"Go and see, then. I want to know. And send Miss Wilhelmina to me."
"Very good, sir."
Somewhat consoled by the thought that he was taking definite action,Mr. Bennett lay back and waited for Billie.
"I want you to go to London," he said, when she appeared.
"To London? Why?"
"I'll tell you why," said Mr. Bennett vehemently. "Because of that pest Mortimer. I must have legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Here's his address. Tell him the whole story. Tell him that this man is annoying me in every possible way and ask if he can't be stopped. If you can't see Sir Mallaby himself, see someone else in the firm. Go up to-night, so that you can see him first thing in the morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy. I've sent Webster to look out a train."
"There's a splendid train in about an hour. I'll take that."
"It's giving you a lot of trouble," said Mr. Bennett with belated consideration.
"Oh no!" said Billie. "I'm only too glad to be able to do something for you, father dear. This noise is a terrible nuisance, isn't it."
"You're a good girl," said Mr. Bennett.
"That's right!" said Sir Mallaby Marlowe. "Work while you're young, Sam, work while you're young." He regarded his son's bent head with affectionate approval. "What's the book to-day?"
"Widgery on Nisi prius Evidence," said Sam, without looking up.
"Capital!" said Sir Mallaby. "Highly improving and as interesting as a novel—some novels. There's a splendid bit on, I think, page two hundred and fifty-four where the hero finds out all about Copyhold and Customary Estates. It's a wonderfully powerful situation. It appears—but I won't spoil it for you. Mind you don't skip to see how it all comes out in the end!" Sir Mallaby suspended conversation while he addressed an imaginary ball with the mashie which he had taken out of his golf-bag. For this was the day when he went down to Walton Heath for his weekly foursome with three old friends. His tubby form was clad in tweed of a violent nature, with knickerbockers and stockings. "Sam!"
"Well?"
"Sam, a man at the club showed me a new grip the other day. Instead of overlapping the little finger of the right hand … Oh, by the way, Sam."
"Yes?"
"I should lock up the office to-day if I were you, or anxious clients will be coming in and asking for advice, and you'll find yourself in difficulties. I shall be gone, and Peters is away on his holiday. You'd better lock the outer door."
"All right," said Sam absently. He was finding Widgery stiff reading. He had just got to the bit about Raptu Haeredis, which, as of course you know, is a writ for taking away an heir holding insocage.
Sir Mallaby looked at his watch.
"Well, I'll have to be going. See you later, Sam."
"Good-bye."
Sir Mallaby went out, and Sam, placing both elbows on the desk and twining his fingers in his hair, returned with a frown of concentration to his grappling with Widgery. For perhaps ten minutes the struggle was an even one, then gradually Widgery got the upper hand. Sam's mind, numbed by constant batterings against the stony ramparts of legal phraseology, weakened, faltered, and dropped away; and a moment later his thoughts, as so often happened when he was alone, darted off and began to circle round the image of Billie Bennett.
Since they had last met, Sam had told himself perhaps a hundred times that he cared nothing about Billie, that she had gone out of his life and was dead to him; but unfortunately he did not believe it. A man takes a deal of convincing on a point like this, and Sam had never succeeded in convincing himself for more than two minutes at a time. It was useless to pretend that he did not still love Billie more than ever, because he knew he did; and now, as the truth swept over him for the hundred and first time, he groaned hollowly and gave himself up to the gray despair which is the almost inseparable companion of young men in his position.
So engrossed was he in his meditation that he did not hear the light footstep in the outer office, and it was only when it was followed by a tap on the door of the inner office that he awoke with a start to the fact that clients were in his midst. He wished that he had taken his father's advice and locked up the office. Probably this was some frightful bore who wanted to make his infernal will or something, and Sam had neither the ability nor the inclination to assist him.
Was it too late to escape? Perhaps if he did not answer the knock, the blighter might think there was nobody at home. But suppose he opened the door and peeped in? A spasm of Napoleonic strategy seized Sam. He dropped silently to the floor and concealed himself under the desk. Napoleon was always doing that sort of thing.
There was another tap. Then, as he had anticipated, the door opened. Sam, crouched like a hare in its form, held his breath. It seemed to him that he was going to bring this delicate operation off with success. He felt he had acted just as Napoleon would have done in a similar crisis. And so, no doubt, he had to a certain extent; only Napoleon would have seen to it that his boots and about eighteen inches of trousered legs were not sticking out, plainly visible to all who entered.
"Good morning," said a voice.
Sam thrilled from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It was the voice which had been ringing in his ears through all his waking hours.
"Are you busy, Mr. Marlowe?" asked Billie, addressing the boots.
Sam wriggled out from under the desk like a disconcerted tortoise.
"Dropped my pen," he mumbled, as he rose to the surface.
He pulled himself with an effort that was like a physical exercise. He stared at Billie dumbly. Then, recovering speech, he invited her to sit down, and seated himself at the desk.
"Dropped my pen!" he gurgled again.
"Yes?" said Billie.
"Fountain-pen," babbled Sam, "with a broad nib."
"Yes?"
"A broad gold nib," went on Sam, with the painful exactitude which comes only from embarrassment or the early stages of intoxication.
"Really?" said Billie, and Sam blinked and told himself resolutely that this would not do. He was not appearing to advantage. It suddenly occurred to him that his hair was standing on end as the result of his struggle with Widgery. He smoothed it down hastily, and felt a trifle more composed. The old fighting spirit of the Marlowes now began to assert itself to some extent. He must make an effort to appear as little of a fool as possible in this girl's eyes. And what eyes they were! Golly! Like stars! Like two bright planets in….
However, that was neither here nor there. He pulled down his waistcoat and became cold and business-like—the dry young lawyer.
"Er—how do you do, Miss Bennett?" he said with a question in his voice, raising his eyebrows in a professional way. He modelled this performance on that of lawyers he had seen on the stage, and wished he had some snuff to take or something to tap against his front teeth. "Miss Bennett, I believe?"
Billie drew herself up stiffly.
"Yes," she replied. "How clever of you to remember me."
"I have a good memory."
"How nice! So have I!"
There was a pause, during which Billie allowed her gaze to travel casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that red hair peeping out beneath her hat and … However!
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked in the sort of voice Widgery might have used. Sam always pictured Widgery as a small man with bushy eyebrows, a thin face, and a voice like a rusty file.
"Well, I really wanted to see Sir Mallaby."
"My father has been called away on important business to Walton Heath.Cannot I act as his substitute?"
"Do you know anything about the law?"
"Do I know anything about the law!" echoed Sam, amazed. "Do I know—!Why, I was reading my Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence when you came in."
"Oh, were you?" said Billie interested. "Do you always read on the floor."
"I told you I dropped my pen," said Sam coldly.
"And of course you couldn't read without that! Well, as a matter of fact, this has nothing to do with Nisi—what you said."
"I have not specialised exclusively on Nisi Prius Evidence. I know the law in all its branches."
"Then what would you do if a man insisted on playing the orchestrion when you wanted to get to sleep?"
"The orchestrion?"
"Yes."
"The orchestrion, eh? Ah! H'm!" said Sam.
"You still haven't made it quite clear," said Billie.
"I was thinking."
"Oh, if you want to think!"
"Tell me the facts," said Sam.
"Well, Mr. Mortimer and my father have taken a house together in the country, and for some reason or other they have quarrelled, and now Mr. Mortimer is doing everything he can to make father uncomfortable. Yesterday afternoon father wanted to sleep, and Mr. Mortimer started his orchestrion just to annoy him."
"I think—I'm not quite sure—I think that's a tort," said Sam.
"A what?"
"Either a tort or a misdemeanour."
"Why, you do know something about it after all!" cried Billie, startled into a sort of friendliness in spite of herself. And at the words and the sight of her quick smile Sam's professional composure reeled on its foundations. He had half risen, with the purpose of springing up and babbling of the passion that consumed him, when the chill reflection came to him that this girl had once said that she considered him ridiculous. If he let himself go, would she not continue to think him ridiculous? He sagged back into his seat and at that moment there came another tap on the door which, opening, revealed the sinister face of the holiday-making Peters.
"Good morning, Mr. Samuel," said Jno. Peters. "Good morning, MissMilliken. Oh!"
He vanished as abruptly as he had appeared. He perceived that what he had taken at first glance for the stenographer was a client, and that the junior partner was engaged on a business conference. He left behind him a momentary silence.
"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first sight.
"I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently.
"What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!"
For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, Mr. Peters, whom he had imagined at his home in Putney packing for his trip to America, would have suggested nothing to him. As it was it suggested a great deal. He had had a brain-wave, and for fully a minute he sat tingling under its impact. He was not a young man who often had brain-waves, and, when they came, they made him rather dizzy.
"Who is he?" asked Billie. "He seemed to know you? And who," she demanded after a slight pause, "is Miss Milliken?"
Sam drew a deep breath.
"It's rather a sad story," he said. "His name is John Peters. He used to be clerk here."
"But isn't he any longer?"
"No." Sam shook his head. "We had to get rid of him."
"I don't wonder. A man looking like that…."
"It wasn't that so much," said Sam. "The thing that annoyed father was that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken."
Billie uttered a cry of horror!
"He tried to shoot Miss Milliken!"
"He did shoot her—the third time," said Sam warming to his work. "Only in the arm, fortunately," he added. "But my father is rather a stern disciplinarian and he had to go. I mean, we couldn't keep him after that."
"Good gracious!"
"She used to be my father's stenographer, and she was thrown a good deal with Peters. It was quite natural that he should fall in love with her. She was a beautiful girl, with rather your own shade of hair. Peters is a man of volcanic passions, and, when, after she had given him to understand that his love was returned, she informed him one day that she was engaged to a fellow at Ealing West, he went right off his onion—I mean, he became completely distraught. I must say that he concealed it very effectively at first. We had no inkling of his condition till he came in with the pistol. And, after that … well, as I say, we had to dismiss him. A great pity, for he was a good clerk. Still, it wouldn't do. It wasn't only that he tried to shoot Miss Milliken. That wouldn't have mattered so much, as she left after he had made his third attempt, and got married. But the thing became an obsession with him, and we found that he had a fixed idea that every red-haired woman who came into the office was the girl who had deceived him. You can see how awkward that made it. Red hair is so fashionable nowadays."
"My hair is red!" whispered Billie pallidly.
"Yes, I noticed it myself. I told you it was much the same shade as Miss Milliken's. It's rather fortunate that I happened to be here with you when he came."
"But he may be lurking out there still!"
"I expect he is," said Sam carelessly. "Yes, I suppose he is. Would you like me to go and send him away? All right."
"But—but is it safe?"
Sam uttered a light laugh.
"I don't mind taking a risk or two for your sake," he said, and sauntered from the room, closing the door behind him. Billie followed him with worshipping eyes.
Jno. Peters rose politely from the chair in which he had seated himself for more comfortable perusal of the copy ofHome Whisperswhich he had brought with him to refresh his mind in the event of the firm being too busy to see him immediately. He was particularly interested in the series of chats with Young Mothers.
"Hullo, Peters," said Sam. "Want anything?"
"Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Samuel. I just looked in to say good-bye. I sail on Saturday, and my time will be pretty fully taken up all the week. I have to go down to the country to get some final instructions from the client whose important papers I am taking over. I'm sorry to have missed your father, Mr. Samuel."
"Yes, this is his golf day, I'll tell him you looked in."
"Is there anything I can do before I go?"
"Do?"
"Well—"—Jno. Peters coughed tactfully—"I see that you are engaged with a client, Mr. Samuel, and was wondering if any little point of law had arisen with which you did not feel yourself quite capable of coping, in which case I might perhaps be of assistance."
"Oh, that lady," said Sam. "That was Miss Milliken's sister."
"Indeed? I didn't know Miss Milliken had a sister."
"No?" said Sam.
"She is not very like her in appearance."
"No. This one is the beauty of the family, I believe. A very bright, intelligent girl. I was telling her about your revolver just before you came in, and she was most interested. It's a pity you haven't got it with you now, to show to her."
"Oh, but I have! I have, Mr. Samuel!" said Peters, opening a small handbag and taking out a hymn-book, half a pound of mixed chocolates, a tongue sandwich, and the pistol, in the order named. "I was on my way to the Rupert Street range for a little practice. I should be glad to show it to her."
"Well, wait here a minute or two," said Sam, "I'll have finished talking business in a moment."
He returned to the inner office.
"Well?" cried Billie.
"Eh? Oh, he's gone," said Sam. "I persuaded him to go away. He was a little excited, poor fellow. And now let us return to what we were talking about. You say…." He broke off with an exclamation, and glanced at his watch. "Good Heavens! I had no idea of the time. I promised to run up and see a man in one of the offices in the next court. He wants to consult me on some difficulty which has arisen with one of his clients. Rightly or wrongly he values my advice. Can you spare me for a short while? I shan't be more than ten minutes."
"Certainly."
"Here is something you may care to look at while I'm gone. I don't know if you have read it? Widgery on Nisi Prius Evidence. Most interesting."
He went out. Jno. Peters looked up from hisHome Whispers.
"You can go in now," said Sam.
"Certainly, Mr. Samuel, certainly."
Sam took up the copy ofHome Whispers, and sat down with his feet on the desk. He turned to the serial story and began to read the synopsis.
In the inner room, Billie, who had rejected the mental refreshment offered by Widgery, and was engaged in making a tour of the office, looking at the portraits of whiskered men whom she took correctly to be the Thorpes, Prescotts, Winslows and Applebys mentioned on the contents-bill outside, was surprised to hear the door open at her back. She had not expected Sam to return so instantaneously.
Nor had he done so. It was not Sam who entered. It was a man of repellent aspect whom she recognised instantly, for Jno. Peters was one of those men who, once seen, are not easily forgotten. He was smiling, a cruel, cunning smile—at least, she thought he was; Mr. Peters himself was under the impression that his face was wreathed in a benevolent simper; and in his hand he bore the largest pistol ever seen outside a motion picture studio.
"How do you do, Miss Milliken?" he said.
Billie had been standing near the wall, inspecting a portrait of the late Mr. Josiah Appleby, of which the kindest thing one can say is that one hopes it did not do him justice. She now shrank back against this wall, as if she were trying to get through it. The edge of the portrait's frame tilted her hat out of the straight, but in this supreme moment she did not even notice it.
"Er—how do you do?" she said.
If she had not been an exceedingly pretty girl, one would have said that she spoke squeakily. The fighting spirit of the Bennetts, though it was considerable fighting spirit, had not risen to this emergency. It had ebbed out of her, leaving in its place a cold panic. She had seen this sort of thing in the movies—there was one series of pictures, The Dangers of Diana, where something of the kind had happened to the heroine in every reel—but she had not anticipated that it would ever happen to her: and consequently she had not thought out any plan for coping with such a situation. A grave error. In this world one should be prepared for everything, or where is one? The best she could do was to stand and stare at the intruder. It would have done Sam Marlowe good—he had now finished the synopsis and was skimming through the current instalment—if he could have known how she yearned for his return.
"I've brought the revolver," said Mr. Peters.
"So—so I see!" said Billie.
Mr. Peters nursed the weapon affectionately in his hand. He was rather a shy man with women as a rule, but what Sam had told him about her being interested in his revolver had made his heart warm to this girl.
"I was just on my way to have a little practice at the range," he said."Then I thought I might as well look in here."
"I suppose—I suppose you're a good shot?" quavered Billie.
"I seldom miss," said Jno. Peters.
Billie shuddered. Then, reflecting that the longer she engaged this maniac in conversation, the more hope there was of Sam coming back in time to save her, she essayed further small-talk.
"It's—it's very ugly!"
"Oh, no!" said Mr. Peters, hurt.
Billie perceived that she had said the wrong thing.
"Very deadly-looking, I meant," she corrected herself hastily.
"It may have deadly work to do, Miss Milliken," said Mr. Peters.
Conversation languished again. Billie had no further remarks to make of immediate interest, and Mr. Peters was struggling with a return of the deplorable shyness which so handicapped him in his dealings with the other sex. After a few moments, he pulled himself together again, and, as his first act was to replace the pistol in the pocket of his coat, Billie became conscious of a faint stirring of relief.
"The great thing," said Jno. Peters, "is to learn to draw quickly. Like this!" he added, producing the revolver with something of the smoothness and rapidity with which Billie, in happier moments, had seen conjurers take a bowl of gold fish out of a tall hat. "Everything depends on getting the first shot! The first shot, Miss Milliken, is vital."
Suddenly Billie had an inspiration. It was hopeless she knew, to try to convince this poor demented creature, obsessed with hisidee fixe, that she was not Miss Milliken. Denial would be a waste of time, and might even infuriate him into precipitating the tragedy. It was imperative that she should humour him. And, while she was humouring him, it suddenly occurred to her, why not do it thoroughly.
"Mr. Peters," she cried, "you are quite mistaken!"
"I beg your pardon," said Jno. Peters, with not a little asperity."Nothing of the kind!"
"You are!"
"I assure you I am not. Quickness in the draw is essential."
"You have been misinformed."
"Well, I had it direct from the man at the Rupert Street range," saidMr. Peters stiffly. "And if you had ever seen a picture called Two-GunThomas…."
"Mr. Peters!" cried Billie desperately. He was making her head swim with his meaningless ravings. "Mr. Peters, hear me! I am not married to a man at Ealing West!"
Mr. Peters betrayed no excitement at the information. This girl seemed for some reason to consider her situation an extraordinary one, but many women, he was aware, were in a similar position. In fact, he could not at the moment think of any of his feminine acquaintances whoweremarried to men at Ealing West.
"Indeed?" he said politely.
"Won't you believe me?" exclaimed Billie wildly.
"Why, certainly, certainly," said Jno. Peters.
"Thank God!" said Billie. "I'm not even engaged! It's all been a terrible mistake!"
When two people in a small room are speaking on two distinct and different subjects and neither knows what on earth the other is driving at, there is bound to be a certain amount of mental confusion: but at this point Jno. Peters, though still not wholly equal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation, began to see a faint shimmer of light behind the clouds. In a nebulous kind of way he began to understand that the girl had come to consult the firm about a breach-of-promise action. Some unknown man at Ealing West had been trifling with her heart—hardened lawyer's clerk as he was, that poignant cry "I'm not engaged!" had touched Mr. Peters—and she wished to start proceedings. Mr. Peters felt almost in his depth again. He put the revolver in his pocket, and drew out a note-book.
"I should be glad to hear the facts," he said with professional courtesy. "In the absence of the Guv'nor…."
"I have told you the facts!"
"This man at Ealing West," said Mr. Peters, moistening the point of his pencil, "he wrote you letters proposing marriage?"
"No, no, no!"
"At any rate," said Mr. Peters, disappointed but hopeful, "he made love to you before witnesses?"
"Never! Never! There is no man at Ealing West! There never was a man atEaling West!"
It was at this point that Jno. Peters began for the first time to entertain serious doubts of the girl's mental balance. The most elementary acquaintance with the latest census was enough to tell him that there were any number of men at Ealing West. The place was full of them. Would a sane woman have made an assertion to the contrary? He thought not, and he was glad that he had the revolver with him. She had done nothing as yet actively violent, but it was nice to feel prepared. He took it out and laid it nonchalantly in his lap.
The sight of the weapon acted on Billie electrically. She flung out her hands, in a gesture of passionate appeal, and played her last card.
"I loveyou!" she cried. She wished she could have remembered his first name. It would have rounded off the sentence neatly. In such a moment she could hardly call him 'Mr. Peters.' "You are the only man I love."
"My gracious goodness!" ejaculated Mr. Peters, and nearly fell over backwards. To a naturally shy man this sudden and wholly unexpected declaration was disconcerting: and the clerk was, moreover, engaged. He blushed violently. And yet, even in that moment of consternation, he could not check a certain thrill. No man ever thinks he is as homely as he really is, but Jno. Peters had always come fairly near to a correct estimate of his charms, and it had always seemed to him, that, in inducing his fiancee to accept him, he had gone some. He now began to wonder if he were not really rather a devil of a chap after all. There must, he felt, be precious few men going about capable of inspiring devotion like this on the strength of about six and a half minutes casual conversation.
Calmer thoughts succeeded this little flicker of complacency. The girl was mad. That was the fact of the matter. He got up and began to edge towards the door. Mr. Samuel would be returning shortly, and he ought to be warned.
"So that's all right, isn't it!" said Billie.
"Oh, quite, quite!" said Mr. Peters. "Er—thank you very much!"
"I thought you would be pleased," said Billie, relieved, but puzzled. For a man of volcanic passions, as Sam Marlowe had described him, he seemed to be taking the thing very calmly. She had anticipated a strenuous scene.
"Oh, it's a great compliment," Mr. Peters assured her.
At this point Sam came in, interrupting the conversation at a moment when it had reached a somewhat difficult stage. He had finished the instalment of the serial story inHome Whispers, and, looking at his watch he fancied that he had allowed sufficient time to elapse for events to have matured along the lines which his imagination had indicated.
The atmosphere of the room seemed to him, as he entered, a little strained. Billie looked pale and agitated. Mr. Peters looked rather agitated too. Sam caught Billie's eye. It had an unspoken appeal in it. He gave an imperceptible nod, a reassuring nod, the nod of a man who understood all and was prepared to handle the situation.
"Come, Peters," he said in a deep, firm, quiet voice, laying a hand on the clerk's arm. "It's time that you went."
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Samuel! yes, yes, indeed!"
"I'll see you out," said Sam soothingly, and led him through the outer office and on to the landing outside. "Well, good luck, Peters," he said, as they stood at the head of the stairs. "I hope you have a pleasant trip. Why, what's the matter? You seem upset."
"That girl, Mr. Samuel! I really think—really, she cannot be quite right in her head."
"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Sam firmly. "She's all right! Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye, Mr. Samuel."
"When did you say you were sailing?"
"Next Saturday, Mr. Samuel. But I fear I shall have no opportunity of seeing you again before then. I have packing to do and I have to see this gentleman down in the country…."
"All right. Then we'll say good-bye now. Good-bye, Peters. Mind you have a good time in America. I'll tell my father you called."
Sam watched him out of sight down the stairs, then turned and made his way back to the inner office. Billie was sitting limply on the chair which Jno. Peters had occupied. She sprang to her feet.
"Has he really gone?"
"Yes, he's gone this time."
"Was he—was he violent?"
"A little," said Sam, "a little. But I calmed him down." He looked at her gravely. "Thank God I was in time!"
"Oh, you are the bravest man in the world!" cried Billie, and, burying her face in her hands, burst into tears.
"There, there!" said Sam. "There, there! Come come! It's all right now!There, there, there!"
He knelt down beside her. He slipped one arm round her waist. He patted her hands.
I have tried to draw Samuel Marlowe so that he will live on the printed page. I have endeavoured to delineate his character so that it will be as an open book. And, if I have succeeded in my task, the reader will by now have become aware that he was a young man with the gall of an Army mule. His conscience, if he had ever had one, had become atrophied through long disuse. He had given this sensitive girl the worst fright she had had since a mouse had got into her bedroom at school. He had caused Jno. Peters to totter off to the Rupert Street range making low, bleating noises. And did he care? No! All he cared about was the fact that he had erased for ever from Billie's mind that undignified picture of himself as he had appeared on the boat, and substituted another which showed him brave, resourceful, gallant. All he cared about was the fact that Billie, so cold ten minutes before, had allowed him to kiss her for the forty-second time. If you had asked him, he would have said that he had acted for the best, and that out of evil cometh good, or some sickening thing like that. That was the sort of man Samuel Marlowe was.
His face was very close to Billie's, who had cheered up wonderfully by this time, and he was whispering his degraded words of endearment into her ear, when there was a sort of explosion in the doorway.
"Great Godfrey!" exclaimed Mr. Rufus Bennett, gazing on the scene from this point of vantage and mopping with a large handkerchief a scarlet face, which, as the result of climbing three flights of stairs, had become slightly soluble. "Great Heavens above!"
Remarkable as the apparition of Mr. Bennett appeared to his daughter, the explanation of his presence at that moment in the office of Marlowe, Thorpe, Prescott, Winslow, and Appleby was simple. He had woken early that morning, and, glancing at his watch on the dressing-table, he had suddenly become aware of something bright and yellow beside it, and had paused, transfixed, like Robinson Crusoe staring at the footprint in the sand. If he had not been in England, he would have said it was a patch of sunshine. Hardly daring to hope, he pulled up the shades and looked out on the garden.
It was a superb morning. It was as if some giant had uncorked a great bottle full of the distilled scent of grass, trees, flowers, and hay. Mr. Bennett sniffed luxuriantly. Gone was the gloom of the past days, swept away in a great exhilaration.
Breakfast had deepened his content. Henry Mortimer, softened by the same balmy influence, had been perfectly charming. All their little differences had melted away in the genial warmth. And then suddenly Mr. Bennett remembered that he had sent Billie up to London to enlist the aid of the Law against his old friend, and remorse gripped him. Half an hour later he was in the train, on his way to London to intercept her and cancel her mission. He had arrived, breathless at Sir Mallaby's office, and the first thing he had seen was his daughter in the arms of a young man who was a total stranger to him. The shock took away his breath again just as it was coming back. He advanced shakily into the room, and supported himself with one hand on the desk, while with the other he plied the handkerchief on his super-heated face.
Billie was the first to speak.
"Why, father," she said, "I didn't expect you!"
As an explanation of her behaviour this might, no doubt, have been considered sufficient, but as an excuse for it Mr. Bennett thought it inadequate. He tried to convey a fatherly reproof by puffing like a seal after a long dive in search of fish.
"This is Sam," proceeded Billie. "Sam Marlowe."
Mr. Bennett became aware that the young man was moving towards him with outstretched hand. It took a lot to disconcert Sam, and he was the calmest person present. He gave evidence of this in a neat speech. He did not in so many words congratulate Mr. Bennett on the piece of luck which had befallen him, but he tried to make him understand by his manner that he was distinctly to be envied as the prospective father-in-law of such a one as himself.
Mr. Bennett stared in a frozen sort of way at the hand. He had placed Sam by now. He knew that Sir Mallaby had a son. This, presumably, was he. But the discovery did not diminish his indignation.
"I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Bennett," said Sam. "You could not have come at a more fortunate moment. You see for yourself how things are. There is no need for a long explanation. You came to find a daughter, Mr. Bennett, and you have found a son!"
And he would like to see the man, thought Sam, who could have put it more cleverly and pleasantly and tactfully than that.
"What are you talking about?" said Mr. Bennett, recovering breath. "I haven't got a son."
"I will be a son to you! I will be the prop of your declining years…."
"What the devil do you mean, my declining years?" demanded Mr. Bennett with asperity.
"He means when they do decline, father dear," said Billie.
"Of course, of course," said Sam. "When they do decline. Not till then, of course! I wouldn't dream of it. But, once they do decline, count on me! And I should like to say for my part," he went on handsomely, "what an honour I think it, to become the son-in-law of a man like Mr. Bennett. Bennett of New York!" he added spaciously, not so much because he knew what he meant, for he would have been the first to admit that he did not, but because it sounded well.
"Oh!" said Mr. Bennett "You do, do you?"
Mr. Bennett sat down. He put away his handkerchief, which had certainly earned a rest. Then he fastened a baleful stare upon his newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative. It was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to have directed at anybody except possibly an exceptionally prudish judge at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually atrocious murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only caught the tail end of it, but it was enough to create a misgiving.
"Oh, father! You aren't angry."
"Angry!"
"Youcan'tbe angry!"
"Why can't I be angry!" demanded Mr. Bennett, with that sense of injury which comes to self-willed men when their whims are thwarted. "Why the devil shouldn't I be angry? Iamangry! I come here and find you like—like this, and you seem to expect me to throw my hat in the air and give three rousing cheers! Of course I'm angry! You are engaged to be married to an excellent young man of the highest character, one of the finest young men I have ever met…."
"Oh, well!" said Sam, straightening his tie modestly. "Of course, if you say so … It's awfully good of you…."
"But, father," cried Billie, "I never really loved Bream. I like him very much, but I could never love him. I only got engaged to him because you were so anxious for it, and because … because I had quarrelled with the man I really loved … I don't want to marry Bream."
"Naturally!" said Sam. "Naturally! Quite out of the question. In a few days we'll all be roaring with laughter at the very idea."
Mr. Bennett scorched him with a look compared with which his earlier effort had been a loving glance.
"Wilhelmina," he said, "go into the outer office."
"But, father, you don't understand. You don't realise that Sam has just saved my life."
"Saved your life? What do you mean?"
"There was a lunatic in here with a pistol, and Sam saved me."
"It was nothing," said Sam modestly. "Nothing."
"Go into the outer office!" thundered Mr. Bennett, quite unmoved by this story.
"Very well," said Billie. "I shall always love you, Sam," she said, pausing mutinously at the door.
"I shall always loveyou," said Sam.
"Nobody can keep us apart."
"They're wasting their time, trying," said Sam.
"You're the most wonderful man in the world."
"There never was a girl like you!"
"Getout!" bellowed Mr. Bennett, on whose equanimity this love-scene, which I think beautiful, was jarring profoundly.
"Now, sir!" he said to Sam, as the door closed.
"Yes, let's talk it over calmly," said Sam.
"I will not talk it over calmly!"
"Oh, come! You can do it if you try."
"Bream Mortimer is the son of Henry Mortimer."
"I know," said Sam. "And, while it is no doubt unfair to hold that against him, it's a point you can't afford to ignore. Henry Mortimer! You and I have Henry Mortimer's number. We know what Henry Mortimer is like! A man who spends his time thinking up ways of annoying you. You can't seriously want to have the Mortimer family linked to you by marriage."
"Henry Mortimer is my oldest friend."
"That makes it all the worse. Fancy a man who calls himself your friend treating you like that!"
"The misunderstanding to which you allude has been completely smoothed over. My relations with Mr. Mortimer are thoroughly cordial."
"Well, have it your own way. Personally, I wouldn't trust a man like that. And, as for letting my daughter marry his son…!"
"I have decided once and for all…."
"If you'll take my advice, you will break the thing off."
"I will not take your advice."
"I wouldn't expect to charge you for it," explained Sam, reassuringly. "I give it you as a friend, not as a lawyer. Six-and-eightpence to others, free to you."
"Will you understand that my daughter is going to marry Bream Mortimer?What are you giggling about?"
"It sounds so silly. The idea of anyone marrying Bream Mortimer, I mean."
"Let me tell you he is a thoroughly estimable young man."
"And there you put the whole thing in a nutshell. Your daughter is a girl of spirit. She would hate to be tied for life to an estimable young man."
"She will do as I tell her."
Sam regarded him sternly.
"Have you no regard for her happiness?"
"I am the best judge of what is best for her."
"If you ask me," said Sam candidly, "I think you're a rotten judge."
"I did not come here to be insulted!"
"I like that! You have been insulting me ever since you arrived. What right have you to say that I'm not fit to marry your daughter?"
"I did not say that."
"You've implied it. And you've been looking at me as if I were a leper or something the Pure Food Committee has condemned. Why? That's what I ask you," said Sam, warming up. This, he fancied, was the way Widgery would have tackled a troublesome client. "Why? Answer me that!"
Sam rapped sharply on the desk.
"Be careful, sir. Be very careful!" He knew that this was what lawyers always said. Of course, there is a difference in position between a miscreant whom you suspect of an attempt at perjury and the father of the girl you love, whose consent to the match you wish to obtain, but Sam was in no mood for these nice distinctions. He only knew that lawyers told people to be very careful, so he told Mr. Bennett to be very careful.
"What do you mean, be very careful?" said Mr. Bennett.
"I'm dashed if I know," said Sam frankly. The question struck him as a mean attack. He wondered how Widgery would have met it. Probably by smiling quietly and polishing his spectacles. Sam had no spectacles. He endeavoured, however, to smile quietly.
"Don't laugh at me!" roared Mr. Bennett.
"I'm not laughing at you."
"You are!"
"I'm not!"
"Well, don't then!" said Mr. Bennett. He glowered at his young companion. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time, talking to you. The position is clear to the meanest intelligence. You cannot have any difficulty in understanding it. I have no objection to you personally…."
"Come, this is better!" said Sam.
"I don't know you well enough to have any objection to you or any opinion of you at all. This is the first time I have ever met you in my life."
"Mark you," said Sam. "I think I am one of those fellows who grow on people…."
"As far as I am concerned, you simply do not exist. You may be the noblest character in London or you may be wanted by the police. I don't know. And I don't care. It doesn't matter to me. You mean nothing in my life. I don't know you."
"You must persevere," said Sam. "You must buckle to and get to know me. Don't give the thing up in this half-hearted way. Everything has to have a beginning. Stick to it, and in a week or two you will find yourself knowing me quite well."
"I don't want to know you!"
"You say that now, but wait!"
"And thank goodness I have not got to!" exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing to be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair. "For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! I shall try to forget your very existence, and I shall see to it that Wilhelmina does the same! You're an impudent scoundrel, sir! An impudent scoundrel! I don't like you! I don't wish to see you again! If you were the last man in the world I wouldn't allow my daughter to marry you! If that is quite clear, I will wish you good morning!"
Mr. Bennett thundered out of the room, and Sam, temporarily stunned by the outburst, remained where he was, gaping. A few minutes later life began to return to his palsied limbs. It occurred to him that Mr. Bennett had forgotten to kiss him good-bye, and he went into the outer office to tell him so. But the outer office was empty. Sam stood for a moment in thought, then he returned to the inner office, and, picking up a time-table, began to look out trains to the village of Windlehurst in Hampshire, the nearest station to his aunt Adeline's charming old-world house, Windles.
As I read over the last few chapters of this narrative, I see that I have been giving the reader a rather too jumpy time. To almost a painful degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is what Aristotle tells one ought to do, I feel that a little respite would not be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions churned up to a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet, peaceful scene in domestic life. It won't last long—three minutes, perhaps, by a stop-watch—but that is not my fault. My task is to record facts as they happened.
The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to be. A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the under-growth at the end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the grass in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after they had worked themselves to the bone gathering honey, the proceeds of their labour would be collared and consumed by idle humans, buzzed industriously to and fro and dived head foremost into flowers. Winged insects danced sarabands in the sunshine. And in a deck-chair under the cedar-tree Billie Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was engaged in drawing a picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled up in a ball, lay her Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles slept Smith, the bulldog. In the distant stable-yard, unseen but audible, a boy in shirt sleeves was washing the car and singing as much as treacherous memory would permit of a popular sentimental ballad.
You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment, Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad in white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing touch that was needed.
Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith, the bull-dog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett did not quail. Of late, relations of distant but solid friendship had come to exist between them. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal's nature and the essential purity of his motives; and now it was only when they encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass, Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern civilization had seen to the lion lying down with the lamb.
"Sketching?" said Mr. Bennett.
"Yes," said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but apart from that her mind was an open book.
"It's a great morning," said Mr. Bennett.
"So peaceful," said Billie.
"The eggs you get in the country in England," said Mr. Bennett, suddenly striking a lyrical note, "are extraordinary. I had three for breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied competition. They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown-hay!"
He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy.
"And the hams!" he went on. "The ham I had for breakfast was what I call ham! I don't know when I've had ham like that. I suppose it's something they feed the pigs," he concluded, in soft meditation. And he gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful.
Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift side-glance at her father—the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently continued to meditate peacefully on ham.
They had sat like this for perhaps a minute—two happy mortals lulled by the gentle beauty of the day—when from the window of the drawing-room there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet, peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and terror resume work at the old stand.
The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second assistant at Green's Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr. Bennett.
"Please, sir, a gentleman to see you."
"Eh?" said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged with bread-crumbed fat. "Eh?"
"A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are expecting him."
"Of course, yes. To be sure."
Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French windows he could see an indistinct form in a gray suit, and remembered that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe's clerk—who was taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing from Southampton to-morrow.
He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno. Peters with an expression on his ill-favored face, which looked like one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm.
"Morning, Mr. Peters," said Mr. Bennett. "Very good of you to run down. Take a seat, and I'll just go through the few notes I have made about the matter."
"Mr. Bennett," exclaimed Jno. Peters. "May—may I speak?"
"What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?"
Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since, gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie, seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett ignorant of what he was up against.
One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and the subsequent walk from the station. The splendor of the morning had soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink, without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and seen Billie.
"Mr. Bennett," he said, "I don't want to do anybody any harm, and, if you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in the head. I don't say she's dangerous, but she isn't compos. She decidedly isnotcompos, Mr. Bennett!"
Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters' sanity went down to zero.
"What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?"
It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other's wealth and business connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He particularised.
"I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee."
"What! What!" Mr. Bennett spluttered. "Do you know who that is?" he exclaimed.
"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Jno. Peters. "I have only met her once, when she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when—" here Jno. Peters, modest to the core, turned vividly pink, "when she told me—she told me that I was the only man she loved!"
Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry.
"Sweet spirits of nitre!"
Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred from seeking light, by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from his seat, with a vivacity of which one could not have believed him capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow.
"Wilhelmina!"
Billie looked up from her sketching-book with a start. It seemed to her that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she did not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance.
"What it is, father?"
Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There before her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters; and there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters was, as a matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag of mixed chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie's eyes, though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that, if Jno. Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a pistol. She screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole acquaintance with Jno. Peters had been on constant backing against walls.
"Don't shoot!" she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand into the pocket of his coat. "Oh, please don't shoot!"
"What the deuce do you mean?" said Mr. Bennett, irritably.
He hated to have people gibbering around him in the morning.
"Wilhelmina, this man says that you told him you loved him."
"Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!"
"Suffering cats!"
Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of a chair.
"But you've only met him once!" he added almost pleadingly.
"You don't understand, father dear," said Billie desperately. "I'll explain the whole thing later, when…."
"Father!" ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. "Did you say 'father'?"
"Of course I said 'father'!"
"This is my daughter, Mr. Peters."
"My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are—are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Do you think I don't know my own daughter?"
"But she called me 'Mr. Peters'!"
"Well, it's your name, isn't it?"
"But, if she—if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my name?"
The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie.
"That's true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?"
"Why, in—in Sir Mallaby Marlowe's office, the morning you came there and found me when I was—talking to Sam."
Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene oppressive to a not very robust intellect.
"He—Mr. Samuel—told me your name, Miss Milliken," he said dully.
Billie stared at him.
"Mr. Marlowe told you my name was Miss Milliken!" she repeated.
"He told me that you were the sister of the Miss Milliken who acts as stenographer for the guv'—for Sir Mallaby, and sent me in to show you my revolver, because he said you were interested and wanted to see it."
Billie uttered an exclamation. So did Mr. Bennett, who hated mysteries.
"What revolver? Which revolver? What's all this about a revolver? Have you a revolver?"
"Why, yes, Mr. Bennett. It is packed now in my trunk, but usually I carry it about with me everywhere in order to take a little practice at the Rupert Street range. I bought it when Sir Mallaby told me he was sending me to America, because I thought I ought to be prepared—because of the Underworld, you know."
A cold gleam had come into Billie's eyes. Her face was pale and hard. If Sam Marlowe—at that moment carolling blithely in his bedroom at the Blue Boar in Windlehurst, washing his hands preparatory to descending to the coffee-room for a bit of cold lunch—could have seen her, the song would have frozen on his lips. Which, one might mention, as showing that there is always a bright side, would have been much appreciated by the travelling gentleman in the adjoining room, who had had a wild night with some other travelling gentlemen, and was then nursing a rather severe headache, separated from Sam's penetrating baritone, only by the thickness of a wooden wall.
Billie knew all. And, terrible though the fact is as an indictment of the male sex, when a woman knows all, there is invariably trouble ahead for some man.
There was trouble ahead for Sam Marlowe. Billie, now in possession of the facts, had examined them and come to the conclusion that Sam had played a practical joke on her, and she was a girl who strongly disapproved of practical humor at her expense.
"That morning I met you at Sir Mallaby's office, Mr. Peters," she said in a frosty voice, "Mr. Marlowe had just finished telling me a long and convincing story to the effect that you were madly in love with a Miss Milliken, who had jilted you, and that this had driven you off your head, and that you spent your time going about with a pistol, trying to shoot every red-haired woman you saw, because you thought they were Miss Milliken. Naturally, when you came in and called me Miss Milliken, and brandished a revolver, I was very frightened. I thought it would be useless to tell you that I wasn't Miss Milliken, so I tried to persuade you that I was, and hadn't jilted you after all."
"Good gracious!" said Mr. Peters, vastly relieved; and yet—for always there is bitter mixed with the sweet—a shade disappointed. "Then—er—you don't love me after all?"
"No!" said Billie. "I am engaged to Bream Mortimer, and I love him and nobody else in the world!"
The last portion of her observation was intended for the consumption of Mr. Bennett, rather than that of Mr. Peters, and he consumed it joyfully. He folded Billie in his ample embrace.
"I always thought you had a grain of sense hidden away somewhere," he said, paying her a striking tribute. "I hope now that we've heard the last of all this foolishness about that young hound Marlowe."
"You certainly have! I don't want ever to see him again! I hate him!"
"You couldn't do better, my dear," said Mr. Bennett, approvingly. "And now run away. Mr. Peters and I have some business to discuss."